“I’ve often wondered what makes a perfect cookie,” Krasnow says in the video below.

So, naturally, Krasnow built a machine that allows him to make slight variations on individual cookies so that he can more efficiently test different recipes and figure out which one he likes the most.

Ben Krasnow

The contraption has a rotating carousel with containers that dispense ingredients like butter and sugar. Once the user selects a desired value of each ingredient with a computer program, the carousel rotates around and drops said ingredient into a bowl sitting atop a scale.

Krasnow said he can test up to 30 different cookies recipes in one afternoon. He’s found that using too little flour makes cookies too crisp, and that too much brown sugar doesn’t result in chewiness.

“Luckily, since it is so difficult to mess up a chocolate chip cookie, eating mistakes is not all that much of a penalty,” he said.

Check out the video below to see the machine in action, and head here for more details on the development process.

Taylor Soper is a GeekWire staff reporter who covers a wide variety of tech assignments, including emerging startups in Seattle and Portland, the sharing economy and the intersection of technology and sports. Follow him @taylor_soper and email taylor@geekwire.com.

Comments

Kish

This. Is. Awesome.

Guest

I applaud him for going the geek route in making cookies. Just a bit of cookie 101 for him, don’t melt your butter (which is what he did to let the machine dispense the ingredient). You’ll never get the perfect cookie if you mix your ingredients with melted butter. It needs to be cold firm butter. Do not, for any reason, use margarine either. Sorry, I’m a cookie, beer and coffee snob.

Machine bad, Grandma good!

I challenge this machine to Grandma’s cookies any day of the week and twice on Sunday!